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Mid July 2017 mortgage rates reach new high

Published: 18 Jul 2017

Freddie Mac's July release on mortgage rates shows some notable increase. The source said that the week of July 13 showed rate improvements for 15 and 30-year fixed rate, as well as 5-year adjustable rate mortgages for this period. Though all of these show some form of an uptick, the middle of these, for the 30-year FRM's, proved especially significant.

Mortgage rates and application volumeIn a statement on the new rate levels, Freddie Mac Chief Economist Sean Becketti described this move as both important in its own right and a reaction to recent greater conditions in the National Treasury.

"After fully absorbing the sharp increases in Treasury yields over the past couple of weeks, the 30-year mortgage rate has cleared the psychologically important 4 percent mark for the first time since May," he said. "Today's survey rate stands at 4.03 percent, up 7 basis points from last week."

Compared to this, the 15-year FRM increased from an average percent of 3.22 to 3.29 in the span of the same week, while the ARM rate climbed from 3.21 to 3.28 percent. Just a day before this release, the Mortgage Bankers Association posted its own statement on the amount of mortgage applications in July, saying that the Market Composite Index declined by 7.4 percent in the span of the first seven days of the month. At the same time, the Federal Housing Administration's share of the applications grew slightly, from 10.2 to 10.4 percent.

A look at monthly interest ratesThe Federal Housing Finance Agency has monthly interest rate information as recent as May.Although it's obviously not as recent as the previous figures, this source's report also shows a somewhat different story, with loan interest rates generally seen to decrease instead of the upward trend reported for July. The next update from this source, which will cover the June figures, is not set for publication until July 27.

According to the May data, the mortgage loan average interest rate went from 3.98 in April to 3.90 in May, and that the effective interest rate for all loans descended as well. On the other hand, the average loan amount for that month was $3,900 more than it was in April.